Road Trip Driving Route Peru Chile June 2016

With nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km) driven, June 2016 was our biggest driving month in years. It was also one of the most dramatic with two tire blowouts, a missed border crossing, an Incan rope bridge re-building festival, a traditional vicuña round-up and miles and miles of gorgeous coastal, Andean, and Altiplano scenery. It’s all captured in our drive-lapse road trip travel footage shot with our Brinno time-lapse dash cam at the end of this post.

June 2016 South American road trip driving route in Peru and Chile

The primarily reason we drove so much in June was because we had to make a border run to renew our Peruvian vehicle importation permit which requires that we exit the country and re-enter. This called for an 800 mile (1,300 km) drive south into Chile.

We expected it would take us two long days of driving to reach the border from Lima. What we didn’t account for was a pair of blowouts that left us stuck on the side of the highway for more than seven hours struggling to get over-tightened lug nuts off due to some careless work that was done on our truck in Lima.

This caused us to arrive at the border a day late. Did we mention that in Peru if you overstay your permit they have the right to confiscate your vehicle? Many tense hours, a day of waiting and lots of paperwork and explanations later we finally got special permission to cross the border with our truck and re-enter Peru with a fresh permit.

Then we made a 450 mile (725 km) bee-line from the coastal border to a village high in the Andes to catch the Q’eswachaki Bridge festival which is the annual rebuilding of the last traditional Incan rope bridge in Peru. The drive from Tacna to Monquegua to Puno to Juliaca and then to the bridge took us up and over the high Andean Altiplano where we spent four hours driving between 13,500 to 15,500 feet (4,115 to 4,725 meters), not an easy task when you aren’t acclimatized to the high altitude. Luckily the road was spectacular, the pavement was good, the views were epic and there was almost no traffic. Just the way we like it.

Following the bridge festival we carried on to Cuzco, then drove to Abancay and then to Puquio which we used as a base to attend an annual vicuña roundup and shearing festival called a chaccu that takes place near the Pampa Galeras National Reserve. This all happened at around 13,000 feet (2,200 meters) so once the chaccu was over we decided to warm up in Nazca (at a mere 1,700 feet (520 meters) where we finished up the month of June by visiting area archaeological sites and the flying over the famous Nazca Lines.

Below is a map of our South American road trip driving route in Peru and Chile in June 2016.

And check out all of the gorgeous scenery in one month of driving in Peru and Chile in our drive-lapse road trip travel video shot with our Brinno time-lapse dash cam.